Let's look at it another way: How does avoidance compare to effective health for maintaining healer mana? This will be in the context of heroics or level instances. Everyone talks about raids, so let's try something new and discuss something that isn't worth the bother.

AvoidanceIf the tank avoids, you don't need to heal. Assuming the tank won't get two-shot, you can heal reactively. More avoidance means you don't have to heal as often.

Effective healthThe tank takes more hits, but you can let him drop more before healing. This means you can heal in bursts rather than now and then.

A useful post would bring in math, but that's far too complex for writing while I wait for glyphs to be posted. Instead let's just think really, really hard. Is the healer going to maintain mana better with less healing, but potentially not getting out of the 5 second rule? That's the avoidance tank. The EH tank will need more healing overall, but it can be more like heal heal heal heal wait..... heal heal heal heal wait.....

This is obviously irrelevant to a healer based on mana/5 or crit, such as a paladin or shaman. But for priests and druids? It could make a difference.

But let's get back to the point: Do bad tanks cause lag?

What is lag? Lag is what it is when a healer doesn't heal you soon enough and you die. An undergeared tank will reduce the reaction time, making it more likely that the healer will lag. By lag I of course mean 'lag'. Or do I?

Could it be that the lag complaints in Dalaran are not due to tons of people in a small space, or low RAM or slow hard drives, but instead could it be caused by a crowd of bad tanks?

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That makes sense. Blizz could also do something with the spell graphics; something like giving players the option to turn them on or off entirely instead of the default ''low'' effects in the video options screen.

Hm, it's rarely a concern. The only time a tank's incoming damage is well over "normal" is usually when they aren't defense capped (I mean uncrittable) and using DPS gear. With the defense cap (I mean uncrittable, I know there is no "defense cap") I know that there won't be an unexpected 12k hit for no reason at all, and Heroics don't have extreme amounts of tank damage.

Isn't EH the amount of "effective health" after factoring in your base health pool, damage reductions, and avoidance? That's how I've understood it. Higher avoidance would mean a higher EH. EH kinda stems from how long you can survive without a single heal. Avoidance plays a huge part in EH.

Since WotLK was released, the 5sr has nearly died out. Not because of tank damage. The other damage. AoE damage. The party (or raid) is bound to take stupid amounts of damage from big black swirly things, stomps, breaths, randomly cast spells, charges, adds, and other specific things. The healers that use the 5sr are generally the healers that have tremendous AoE healing potential.

If a healer is "lagging" behind tank damage, you can usually chalk it up to a healer's inexperience with the fight or inexperience with healing. I play both a Holy Paladin and a Holy Priest, healing as the Priest during TBC, so I'm very familiar with the 5sr, and very familiar with tank healing. On my Priest, when I'm watching tank damage and the rate at which it gets healed, I get nervous. I really get nervous. Because in hardmode kills (Raiding, SORRY!) there's no place for cross healing. If I know someone's underperforming, especially with healing, I can see it. I know what healers are capable of. If I check a tank death and I see the tank didn't get a heal for 7 seconds straight, I go straight to the tank healer to see what happened. That's not lag. That's inexperience! Either with the encounter (died to flame wall) or the class (ran out of mana) or healing (healing someone else).

Yes, there's a difference in tank damage between avoidance and stamina stacking tanks. But every healer is totally capable of pre-casting a heal. It's just inexperience.

EH or TTL usually does not consider avoidance. I normally see it used to mean "worst case EH", or how much damage you can take if the rng hates you and you get a string of non-avoided hits.

Average case EH would include avoidance.

I agree with you though, that avoidance is going to help the healer more with mana in any situation in which the tank does not take frequent very large hits. In a 3.0 heroic, unless your tank is crittable or otherwise wearing the completely wrong gear, other than a monstrously bad pull, there are almost no situations where they can be taken out in 5-6 seconds. Even in all blue gear (my undergeare protadin says ohai).

So you have plenty of time to plan healing. In a hard mode raid, or a in a raid where you are pushing your gear (when undergeared goes to ulduar and up for instance), then this *might* make a difference for druids or priests who have big OOC regen numbers. But I still believe that avoidance is just as good or better for healer mana, as long as there is enough effectively health that the tank cannot be two shot.

If the tank can't be two shot, you can afford to not/heal or cancel your heal when they are close to full, so you can react to avoidance by getting regen.